Havok

January 31, 2011 | By More


One thing you’ll notice shortly after starting reading comics, is how much alike the storylines are when compared to soap operas. You get betrayals, long lost relatives, amnesia and people that just won’t stay dead.

With the X-Men being one of the longest running Marvel franchises, it should be no surprise to see some of those tropes used time and again. Especially the long-lost-sibling one, exemplified by the Summers Family dynamics. In a nutshell, after a few years as a lone orphan, X-Men leader Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops, eventually got reunited with long lost sibling, amnesiac Alex Summers, the mutant known as Havok.

Havok was released in 2010 as part of Hasbro’s Marvel Universe Series 2. Even though for this series Hasbro offered a few new body types with unique sculpts, Havok falls fully into the mostly-repaint segment of the line.

The younger Summers brother uses the slim male buck molded in charcoal black plastic with only a new head sculpt. The costume design is very simple and is achieved on the figure by painting a few lines on torso in metallic blue and silver leading to a circle painted on his chest. There is no shading or highlighting applied to the figure, which keeps tings fairly clean, but also gives the figure a definite TRON vibe.

The head sculpture is rather bland, with the short spiky hair being the most distinguishable feature. The face itself is kind of generic and seems to lack detail, a condition heightened by either the absence of shading apps to the face or due to the paint being thick enough to obscure the sculpted detail underneath. To it’s credit, the eyes are neatly painted, but the eyebrows are painted a shade too similar to the skin, which gives him a weird look.

Since this Havok figure didn’t require any alterations to the basic body, articulation conforms to the usual Marvel Universe standard with:

Ball jointed neck.

• Double peg, hinged shoulders.

• Hinged elbows.

Swivel wrists.

• Floating torso.

• Ball jointed hips. As usual, the thigh pieces connect rather deep into the torso, limiting somewhat the range of motion.

Double Hinged knees.

• Peg & Hinge ankles.

I must say that on characters like Havok, the use of this body mold is much easier to accept than for more acrobatic characters like Nightcrawler or Spiderman (which would really benefit from an increased hip range). On Havok, this articulation model works just fine and it fits his comic book character, since he is not an acrobat nor a martial artist.

Havok comes packaged with an energy blast accessory which is the same putrid repulsor blast effect that comes with every MU Iron Man figure (only molded in blue), a personalized display base and a small envelope containing the corresponding  “HAMMER File” comprised of an In-Universe report about the character and a picture card with some stats printed on it’s back.

Normally, these HAMMER files don’t really offer much in terms of relevant information, but in the case of Havok, I wasn’t aware there was a third Summers sibling running amok in space, so I guess these dossiers aren’t as useless as I first thought.

Overall, Havok is an OK comic character and his action figure follows suit. There is nothing spectacular about it, but it is well constructed and if you are an X-Men fan, you may want to pick one to beef up your roster, although I admit he’s not the most interesting figure in his wave.

Errex Score: 80/100

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Category: Featured, Marvel, Toy Reviews

About the Author ()

I've been collecting action figures since the original Kenner Star Wars days. Nowadays, I still collect pretty much anything that catches my eye.

Comments (1)

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  1. fishmilkshake says:

    Yep, the third brother is Vulcan. Nice one Errex.